Intentionally lame material to see what talent can make of it?

Can you think of someone besides Bryan whose reputation was built so heavily on his workrate and in-ring performance that ended up breaking out as a bona fide star on the strength of his character/mic work/charisma to the degree Bryan has? Punk's always been known for his mic work. Angle's goofy character was part of who he was from the beginning. Eddie's "lie cheat steal" character helped him ascend to new heights in 2004 but that was always part of who he was, too. Bret didn't really ascend to any new heights with his amazing 1997 heel character even if it was a personal breakout for him in terms of depth of character. Austin was obviously a great in-ring worker who went into the stratosphere based off an amazing character/individual charisma but we'd already seen tremendous charisma and character from him in his "Stunning" and "Superstar" iterations in WCW and ECW, albeit in much different fashion than "Stone Cold."

Maybe I'm not familiar enough with Danielson's ROH work and I'm way off base here, but either way, help me out.